Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Unplugged

My son has a friend, a high school senior, who decided out of the blue, to give up all technology for one month. Just to see if he could. Gone was the cell phone, the Ipod, the video games, the TV, and the computer (supposedly his crops on Farmville are withering away).

He lasted three days without the phone, and claims he now knows how lucky he is to have one. The rest he's still holding strong.

I'm not sure how he's doing it. Lives these days are so tied into technology. Our Internet was down last night and it was panic-time around here. The kids had homework to either check online or send to their teachers (yes, some assignments are now uploaded). No email (twitch, twitch), no nothing. Luckily, it came back up after three and a half hours. Whew. Crisis averted.

Then this morning my daughter's I-touch decided to have a hissy fit and stop working. She uses that little gadget so much it's like a fifth appendage. Arms, legs, I-touch. It would still power on but the touch screen refused to cooperate. I was online (see how much we use it?) at 6:15 this morning looking up fixes on the Apple site. I'm happy to say after an hour of pleading (I'm not proud) with it, it decided to come back to life. My daughter will be very happy when she gets home from school (I refuse to text her during school unless it's an emergency and though this was borderline, it doesn't go quite that far).

I can't imagine going a month without technology. A few days, maybe. But that's it. How about you? What bit of technology would you be lost without?

We really do relay too much on technology. More so each day it seems. I guess I'd be lost without my cellphone. Sometimes I stop and wonder "what did I do before cellphones?" I mean, we use them everywhere now. Oh well, I won't go off on that rant.

I definitely couldn't do without my computer, either. And I'm more dependent on my cell phone than I like to admit. I went out without it once a couple of weeks ago and it's oddly freeing and scary! LOL. I like being able to get in touch with the kids easily when they're out and about. And the TV! I think I'd go into withdrawal without TV--but I bet I'd get a lot of reading done!

I spend about two weeks of every year away from home (and internet and mobile and everything else) though this year I took my DS with me and it lasted a few days before the battery died. It didn't really worry me as I found plenty of things to keep me busy. I don't find it a problem, but then again, I plan to be out of contact for this period. During my everyday grind being without the internet or a computer would seriously send me crazy. My phone I could toss tomorrow and not worry about (I'm not exaggerating, I never use it). Being without something to read would worry me more than losing technology. It is something to think about though.

We go hiking every year and leave most technology behind--it's always a challenge. You definitely have to plan ahead when you do something like that! But you're right, everyday living would be really hard without our gizmos.